Книга - Second-Best Husband

Second-Best Husband
PENNY JORDAN


Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.Secretary Sara Browning has just discovered that relationships with the boss don't always work – especially when he's decided to marry someone else! Desperately needing to hide from her humiliation, Sara decides to leave London and stay at her parents' home in Shropshire while she works things out. But Shropshire offers a distraction Sara never expected…Tree specialist Stuart Delaney is everything her former boss and ex-love isn't. He's reliable, kind, sympathetic… and from the sound of it, has a few romantic scars of his own. In fact, he's exactly what Sara wants in a husband – and Stuart is crazy about her. Suddenly Sara finds herself engaged to be married to the perfect guy – but she doesn't love him.Still, if everything looks good on paper, shouldn't there be a happily ever after… eventually?









“I don’t in any way see a marriage between us as being second-best—far from it.


“In fact, in my view…” Stuart stopped and then said more calmly, “I’ve already said that I don’t want to pressure you. At least we can be sure of one thing,” he added, turning away from her slightly. “There can be no doubt that sexually we’re going to be extremely compatible.”

How on earth did he know that? How on earth could he know that? Sara opened her mouth to ask him and then closed it again, conscious of a naiveté and self-consciousness that tied her tongue and kept her silent, while her pulse raced and a sensation like a tiny jolt of electricity burned through her body….



Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author




PENNY JORDAN


Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.




About the Author


Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixtyfive. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-bepublished authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.




Second-Best Husband

Penny Jordan







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHAPTER ONE


‘SO YOU’VE actually done it, then? You’ve handed in your notice and left?’

‘Yes,’ Sara agreed in a low voice, flinching a little as though hearing the words physically pained her.

Her friend and neighbour grimaced sympathetically. She was ten years older than Sara and had known her ever since Sara had bought the house next to their own four years before, and personally she felt like giving a very, very loud cheer. Ian Saunders, Sara’s boss, might be six feet odd of blond good-looking manhood, all outward charm and attractiveness, but inwardly he was as cold and callous as it was possible for a man to be. That was her considered opinion, but in the past, no matter how many times she had voiced it, Sara had refused to listen to her, to hear a word against the man she worked for and loved.

‘Well, you know what I think,’ she told Sara now. ‘For what it’s worth, I consider that leaving is the best thing you could have done.’

Sara’s mouth twisted sadly. She was a tall, slender woman of twenty-nine, with a quiet, calm manner that masked a keenly efficient brain. Her looks mirrored her personality. Her face was delicately oval in shape, her features elegant and well-proportioned, only her mouth, with its unexpected fullness, hinting that her outward control might mask deep and fiery passions.

‘It wasn’t exactly a calm and reasoned decision made of my own free will.’

The pain in her voice made Margaret, her neighbour, turn her head away from her in angry sympathy.

How could Ian Saunders have treated Sara so badly after all she had done for him, working for him like a slave, helping him to build up his business into the success it was today, and all the time loving him, hoping…? Although Sara had always been openly honest in her own knowledge that Ian didn’t return her love, privately Margaret suspected he must have surely guessed how she felt, and, having guessed, out of compassion and concern ought to have suggested years ago that it might be wiser for Sara to find a job elsewhere. Instead of which he had allowed an intimacy to develop between them, a closeness, even if that relationship had been completely non-sexual, which had held out just enough unspoken promise, just enough allure, to make poor Sara go on hoping that maybe one day a miracle would occur and that he would turn to her…want her…need her…not as his faithful PA but as a woman, his woman.

Instead of which he had calmly walked into his office a week ago and announced that he was getting engaged and that he would soon be married.

Sara had been devastated, but when she, Margaret, had urged her then to hand in her notice and make a new life for herself she had selflessly refused, shaking her head, pointing out that if she left it would damage the business which Ian had worked so hard to build up.

‘You were right,’ Sara was saying unhappily now. ‘I should have had the sense to hand in my notice when Ian told me that he and Anna were getting married. But, like the blind fool that I was, I had no idea that Anna wanted my job as well as…’ She broke off, swallowing painfully.

It wasn’t like her to unburden herself like this, but what had happened yesterday had upset and distressed her so much…

She had gone to work as usual. Ian had been away seeing one of their clients, and although she had felt wary and uncomfortable at first when Anna walked into the office, she had had no idea of the real purpose of the other woman’s visit until Anna had launched into the speech which had ultimately led to Sara’s acknowledging that for her own sake she had to make the break from Ian and forge a completely new life for herself well away from him.

‘What exactly did she say to you?’ Margaret pressed gently, sensing Sara’s need to unburden herself.

They were sitting in Sara’s neat, spotless kitchen. Margaret had called round to see her, alerted to the fact that something must be wrong by the fact that Sara had arrived home from work halfway through the afternoon and, after parking her car haphazardly in front of the house, had practically run inside.

Margaret had followed her, anxious to discover what was wrong and if there was anything she could do to help.

Sara shrugged, bending her head over the mug of coffee she was nursing. Her hair was straight and silky, a soft, pretty fair colour which she had expertly highlighted and styled into an elegant shoulder-length bob, which added to her air of competence and efficiency.

Margaret, who had seen her when she was at home, doing her housework, her hair tied up in a pony-tail, her face free of make-up, had been surprised to discover how very young and vulnerable it had made her look, how very much more approachable.

‘More sexy,’ Ben, her husband, had corrected her with a grin. Margaret had frowned him down, even while she acknowledged that it was true. Sara might know how to present herself to make herself look efficient, but when it came to presenting herself in a way that made men…

She gave a small sigh; as a modern woman it went against the grain to suggest to another member of her sex that she ought deliberately to focus on those facets of her looks and personality which made her look more vulnerable and less efficient, and yet she knew how much Sara, for all her efficiency, longed for children, a family… When she spoke of her elder sister, and her two children and another on the way, her face softened and her eyes turned from blue to violet…

As Sara stared into the brown depths of her coffee, she gave a tiny shudder.

What had Anna said? Margaret had asked her. Even now she could hardly endure to recall exactly what Anna Thomas had said to her when she had walked into Ian’s office, red lips pouting, her white-blonde hair a mass of untidy tousled curls, her skirt surely too short and tight… And yet obviously Ian found her attractive. Far more so than… Sara swallowed, forcing herself to block out her emotions and to concentrate instead on answering Margaret’s question.

‘Well, basically, she simply pointed out to me that both she and Ian were aware of my…my feelings for him, that in fact they’d both derived quite a lot of amusement from the fact that I obviously thought I’d managed to keep them hidden. As she pointed out, there’s nothing quite as pathetic as a secretary in love with her boss, especially when there’s absolutely no chance of his returning her feelings.’

She paused as Margaret made a small sound of shocked anger, and shook her head.

‘Well, it’s true enough, even though I had rather flattered myself that Ian and I were more partners than boss and secretary.’

‘Partners!’ Margaret interrupted explosively, unable to control herself any longer. ‘Why, you virtually ran that business for him! Without you…’

Sara smiled sadly at her.

‘I wish it was true, but in all honesty it was Ian’s salesmanship, his flair that made the business a success. I merely worked in the background. Anyway, to continue, as Anna pointed out to me, it would hardly be in my best interests to stay on with Ian now that they were getting married; she could easily replace me in the office, and she and Ian had decided that it would be better all round if I looked for another job. She did say that I could stay until the end of the month if I wished.’

Sara paused, the wry self-contempt in her voice making Margaret wince for her.

‘What could I do? Naturally I told her I’d be leaving immediately. That was yesterday. I only went in today to clear my desk, to tidy up a few odds and ends…’

She bit her lip. She was trying hard not to break down. It had been such an extraordinary interview, so unexpected, so hurtful, when she had believed that she had already suffered all the hurt she could possibly endure.

She had known that Ian was seeing Anna, of course, just as she had known about all the other women he had dated in the ten years during which she had worked for him. She had been devastated when he’d told her that he was marrying Anna, but she’d thought she had managed to conceal her feelings from him, just as she had believed that he had never once, in all the years she had worked for him, guessed about the hopes she cherished, the love she felt for him.

She had honestly believed that Margaret was the only person who knew how she felt, and only because, the year after Sara had moved in next door to her, Margaret had come round unexpectedly one evening and found her in tears because Ian had cancelled the evening out he had arranged for the two of them, as their ‘Christmas party’ and a thank-you to her for all her hard work during the year, so that he could go instead to a party with his latest girlfriend.

Not even her parents or her sister knew…or at least she assumed they didn’t, and she wondered miserably now if even they had guessed, and had kept silent out of pity and compassion for her.

She was fully deserving of the contempt Anna had poured on her, she reflected bitterly now. She was, after all, that most ridiculous of stereotyped creatures, the dull, plain woman, desperately in love with her charming, handsome boss… But at least now she had broken out of that mould by handing in her notice.

‘Well, if you want my advice, you’re well out of it,’ Margaret told her roundly, adding equally forthrightly, ‘All right, I know you hate anyone criticising Ian, but for once I’m going to say what I think, and that is that he’s used you, used your talents, your skills, and now—’

‘And now that he’s fallen in love with Anna there isn’t any room in his life for me any more,’ Sara interrupted her quietly. ‘And to think that all this time I honestly believed I’d successfully hidden how I felt. At first, when I got that job with him…well, I was only nineteen, my head stuffed with dreams.’ She was talking more to herself than to her friend.

‘I’d come to London from Shropshire because I wanted to improve my skills, my chances of getting a top-class job. My parents were concerned about my leaving home, but they didn’t try to stop me. At first I was thoroughly miserable…thoroughly homesick. I was sharing a place with three other girls, working as a temp during the day, and going to college at night to improve my computer and language skills, and then I met Ian. He was taking the same computer course. He was twenty-five then, and he had just broken away and set up his own business. He was a salesman really, he told me, and what he really needed desperately was someone to run the office for him. Eventually he offered me the job, and I jumped at it. He was always a generous boss financially…and then, when Gran died, I used the money I inherited from her to buy this place. I wasn’t homesick anymore…I’d made friends, made a life here for myself, and, if I couldn’t bear to admit it to anyone else, I had already admitted to myself that it was my love for Ian as much as the challenge of my job that kept me working for him. Like a fool, I never gave up hoping…’

And he allowed you to have that hope, Margaret thought shrewdly, but didn’t say so. She felt that Sara had endured more than enough already without having any more burdens to carry.

‘So what will you do now?’ she asked gently.

‘Go home,’ Sara told her, smiling wryly when she saw Margaret’s expression.

‘Yes, silly, isn’t it? I’m a grown woman of twenty-nine, who’s lived in London for ten years, and yet for some reason I still think of Shropshire as home. I’ve got quite a bit saved…I can let this place if necessary…I can afford to take a few months off, give myself time…’ She shook her head uncomfortably, aware that one of the reasons she was so intent on leaving London was because she was afraid—afraid that, once her initial shock and the anger that went with it had gone, she would become vulnerably weak…that she would find excuses for getting in touch with Ian—small matters outstanding at the office…small facts which only she knew—and she didn’t want to allow herself to degenerate into that kind of helpless self-destructiveness. Things were bad enough as it was, without her making them worse…without her knowingly allowing herself to hang on to the coat-tails of Ian’s life, pathetic and unwanted, an object of derision and contempt.

She closed her eyes as her vision became blurred by tears, obliterating the mental image she had just had of Ian and Anna together, laughing about her, Ian’s handsome blond head flung back, his blue eyes laughing, his expression one of callous contempt. She shivered suddenly, acknowledging how odd it was that she was able to conjure up that image so easily; and yet, had anyone ever suggested to her that Ian could be callous, could be cruel, could be deliberately malicious and unkind, she would have refuted their criticisms immediately. Except…over the years there had been occasions, moments, when even her devotion had wavered, flinching a little as he made a decision, a comment, a pronouncement which she had soft-heartedly felt to be less warm and generous than it should have been.

She had known always that he was egotistical, but she had allowed herself to believe it was the egotism of a spoiled little boy who didn’t know any better, who would never deliberately inflict cruelty on others. Had she been wrong? Had she all this time refused to allow herself to see the truth? She shivered again, causing Margaret to watch her with some concern.

Despite Sara’s outward air of competence and self-containment, her neighbour had always privately thought that these only narrowly masked an inner vulnerability and fragility, a soft femininity which made Margaret despise Ian Saunders even more for his lack of concern and compassion for her friend.

‘Yes, I think you should go home,’ she said firmly now. ‘Even though I know I’m going to miss you desperately, especially when I’m looking for someone to look after those two awful brats of mine.’

Sara laughed shakily. ‘You know you adore them,’ she countered.

‘Mmm…but I try not to let them guess it. It’s hard work at times being the only woman in a household of three males.’ She paused and then said quietly, ‘I know this probably isn’t the time to raise this particular subject, but I’m going to say something to you that I’ve wanted to say for a long time. I’m older than you, Sara, and I’ve seen a lot more of life. I know how you feel about Ian Saunders, or at least how you think you feel, but in all honesty you’ve never allowed yourself to discover whether you could allow yourself to love or care for any other man, have you?’ she asked gently.

‘Allow myself—’ Sara began, but Margaret refused to let her speak.

‘Falling in love is easy, loving someone is a lot harder; and going on loving them, through the nitty-gritty of mundane everyday life, is even harder, and even more worthwhile.

‘I know from the things you’ve told me, from watching you with my own two, that you want children. You know what you should do now, don’t you? You should put Ian Saunders right out of your mind and look round for a nice man to marry and have those children with.’

Sara couldn’t help it. She flushed defensively. ‘I can’t switch off my feelings just like that, marry a man I don’t love, no matter how much I might want a family.’

Of course Margaret was right. Of course she wanted children. Sometimes, in fact, that wanting was so sharp, so acutely painful that it made her ache inside, made her wake up at night…but what Margaret was telling her to do was impossible.

‘I wasn’t in love with Ben when I married him,’ Margaret told her softly, astounding Sara. She had never met anyone apart from her own parents who were as devoted and as obviously content and happy together as their neighbours, and she had always assumed that they had been deeply in love when they married. ‘And, what’s more, he wasn’t in love with me. In fact, we were both on the rebound from other relationships. We’d known each other some time in a casual, friendly sort of way. One evening we got talking…we discovered how many interests we had in common, including a desire to settle down and raise a family, and that those needs had not been shared by our previous partners, the ones with whom we were so much in love. So we talked about it, started going out together, to see if it…if we could work, and then, when we found that we were getting on as well together as we had hoped, we got married. Not because we were in love, but because we both genuinely and honestly thought we could make our relationship work. I’ve never for one minute regretted that decision, and I don’t think Ben has either—and do you know something else?’ She gave Sara a shining, almost defensive smile. ‘I don’t know quite how it has happened, but somehow there’s been a small miracle for both of us, and now we love one another very much indeed.’

‘I envy you, Margaret, but I don’t think…’

‘Listen to me. You and I are very much alike in many ways. Stop wasting your life on a man who you can’t have and who would hurt you badly if you could. Don’t spend the rest of your life weeping tears of regret. Decide what it is you really want. Use this time with your parents at home to think about the things which are really important to you. All right, so you may decide that I’m wrong, that a husband, a home, a family aren’t the things you want enough to put aside your dreams of falling in love, of being in love for. But on the other hand you might find you make some surprising discoveries about yourself and about your true needs.’



As Sara turned off the motorway and took the familiar route homewards, she found herself turning over in her mind what Margaret had said to her. A home…children… Yes, these were things she had always wanted. Despite her decision to move to London, to carve a life for herself as a career woman in the big city, at heart she had remained the small-town girl she had been born. She had enjoyed her years in London, but in her heart of hearts she had never believed they would be anything other than a busy interlude between her childhood and her eventual role as a wife and mother.

Every time she saw her parents, every time she saw her sister, she was reminded of her most basic needs and how her life was stifling them. How it was stifling her. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to break away from Ian… She had refused to make herself face up to the truth: that there never was going to come a day when he would turn to her, look at her…take her in his arms. She was twenty-nine years old. Not old by any means, but no longer young enough to deceive herself with such silly daydreams. She thought of the men who had asked her out over the years, kind, pleasant men, but just men when compared with Ian, with her love, her adoration…her compulsive worship of him. Men whom she had refused, ignored, forgotten… Men with whom, according to Margaret, she could easily have been happy and fulfilled…men with whom she could have had children. Children who would have given her so much joy—children who would have made her forget Ian? Impossible, surely…or was it simply that she did not want to allow herself to forget him; that she was so conscious of the fact that she had wasted so much of her life, given up so much, to maintain her devotion to him, that her pride, her stubbornness, would not allow her to admit that she had made a mistake, had behaved in a stupid blinkered fashion? But now that she was being forced into separating her life from his…now that she…

She moved restlessly in her seat. Her back was beginning to ache from the long drive. She was glad that it was almost summer and the evenings light enough to allow her to complete her journey before it grew dark.

Her expression softened into one of warm affection as she thought about her parents. Her father was retired now. He and her mother still lived in the house where she and her sister had grown up, though. Two miles outside the village, it stood alone, halfway down a lane which led eventually to the Jacobean manor house whose home farm it had once been.

The manor house had been empty for several years, the old man who had owned it having died and there being no direct heir, nor apparently anyone interested in purchasing such a rambling and derelict property so far off the beaten track. But when she had last been home at Christmas—Ian had booked a skiing holiday in Colorado for Christmas and the New Year, and so there had been nothing to tempt her to stay in London, even if she could have brought herself to disappoint her parents and break with family tradition by doing so—her mother had told her excitedly that the house had at last been sold. The man who had bought it was some sort of tree expert with the Forestry Commission who had now decided to branch out into a business of his own, growing and selling not only rare specimen trees, but also many native broadleaved trees, for which apparently there was a growing market both at home and abroad in these environmentally aware days.

Her parents had only met their new neighbour briefly, but Sara had gained the impression that her mother had rather taken him to her heart.

‘All on his own living in that great draughty place,’ was what she had said at Christmas, adding that she had invited him to join them for Christmas Day, but that he had apparently already made arrangements to spend the holiday with friends in the north-east of the country.

‘He’s not married, and has no family to speak of. Both his parents are dead, and his brother lives in Australia.’

How like her mother to wheedle so much information out of a stranger so very quickly, Sara reflected fondly. Not out of nosiness; her mother wasn’t like that. She was one of those people who was naturally concerned for and caring about her fellow man.

What would she have made of Ian had Sara ever taken him home? It came to her with a small unpleasant jolt of surprise that she knew without even having to consider the matter that her parents would not have taken to Ian; that he in turn would have treated them with that slightly disdainful contempt she had seen him use to such effect with anyone he considered neither important enough nor interesting enough to merit his attention.

She bit her lip, worrying at it without realising what she was doing.

But Ian wasn’t really like that. He was fun, clever, quick-witted…not…not shallow, vain and self-important. Or was he? Had she in her love for him been guilty of wearing rose-coloured glasses, of seeing in him the qualities she wanted to see and ignoring those which reflected less well on him, which actually existed?

If he was really the man she had wanted to believe he was, had allowed herself to believe he was, would he have been attracted to a woman like Anna, outwardly attractive in an obvious and rather overdone sort of way, but inwardly…?

Sara bit her lip again. She had no right to criticise Anna just because she… No doubt Ian saw a side of her that wasn’t discernible to her, another woman…a woman moreover who loved him. Jealousy wasn’t an attractive emotion, and she was hardly an impartial critic, she reminded herself sternly. And, anyway, what did it matter what she thought of Anna? Ian loved her. He had told her so himself.

Her body tensed as she remembered that awful day. A Monday morning. Ian had been away for the weekend to stay with ‘friends’. To stay with Anna, she had realised later. He had arrived halfway through the morning glowing with enthusiasm and excitement.

It had happened at last, he had told Sara exuberantly. He had at last met the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life…a woman like no other…

She remembered how she had listened, sick at heart, her body still as she forbade it to reveal the anguish she was suffering, her face averted from him as she fought to control her shock, her pain.

And then, when she had actually met Anna for the first time, she had realised what a fool she had been to ever imagine that Ian might come to love her. She and Anna were so completely different from one another. She was tall and slim, thin almost; Anna was shorter, and all voluptuous curves. She was shy, withdrawn almost, quiet and rather reserved; Anna was a self-publicist with no inhibitions about singing her own praises, advancing her own talents.

Where she preferred restraint, quiet clothes in classic colours and styles, Anna wore the kind of expensive designer outfits calculated to draw people’s attention.

Watching the way Ian looked at her, seeing the desire, the admiration in his eyes as he followed Anna’s every movement, Sara had recognised how truly foolish she had been in ever allowing herself to hope that there might come a day when Ian would turn to her, would look at her.

She was simply not his type. Oh, he might like her…he might praise her work, he might even flatter her as he had done over the years…and she might have been silly enough to use that flattery to build herself a tower of hope that any sensible woman would soon have realised had no foundation at all; but the reality was that, whether Anna had arrived in his life or not, Ian would never have found her, Sara, desirable.

Face it, she derided herself bitterly now. You just aren’t the kind of woman that men do desire.

She remembered how often her sister had teased her about her aloofness, had told her that she ought to relax more, have fun… ‘You always look so prim and proper,’ Jacqui had told her. ‘So neat and perfect that no man would ever dare to ruffle your hair or smudge your lipstick.’

She had wanted to protest then that that wasn’t true, but had been too hurt to do so. It wasn’t her fault if she wasn’t the curly, pretty, vivacious type.

She cringed inwardly, remembering how Anna had mocked her, telling her, ‘Honestly, you’re unbelievable. Quite the archetypal frustrated spinster type, dotingly in love with a man she can never have. I suppose you’re still even a virgin. Ian thinks it’s a huge joke, a woman of your age who hasn’t had a lover; but then, as he said, what red-blooded man would want you?’

Anna had smiled a cruel little smile as she casually threw these comments to her, malice glinting in her light blue eyes as they focused on Sara’s pale, set face.

Now, as she recalled her comments, Sara’s hands tightened on the steering-wheel, her knuckles gleaming white with tension. Up until this moment, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about that. To think about Anna and Ian— Ian whom she had loved so much and for so long—laughing about her, making fun of her.

She shuddered sickly, a rigour of tension and pain, and yet in the middle of her anguish there was still room for a small, cold voice that asked why, when she had had such a high opinion of Ian, she was not immediately and instantly rejecting the very idea that he would be so cruel, so callous about anyone? Never mind about her, someone whom he had known for so long, someone whom he had claimed to admire and care about.

She could accept that he couldn’t love her; why should he? Love wasn’t something that could be summoned on demand, nor banished equally easily, as she had good cause to know; but surely the Ian she had admired and liked so much, the Ian she had thought she had known so well, would never, ever have made fun of her, laughed so cruelly and tauntingly about her with anyone, even if that person was the woman he was going to marry. Surely the Ian she had thought she had known would have had the consideration, the kindness, the sheer compassion for even those members of the human race who were not known to him personally not to be able to entertain such small-mindedness.

The Ian she had thought she had known, even if he had known about her feelings, her love, would never have been able to behave in the way that Anna had described to her, and yet, when Anna had thrown her taunts at her, instead of immediately and automatically being able to rebuff them as being totally unworthy of Ian, totally impossible for a man of his calibre, all she had been able to do was to stand there sickly acknowledging the extent of her own folly, her own self-deceit.

And yet even now it wasn’t Ian she hated. It wasn’t Ian she despised.

No, those bitter, acid emotions were reserved for herself. Which was why she had had to come away. She dared not allow herself to weaken, to become even more foolish and contemptible by staying in London where it would be all too fatally easy to find some excuse to make contact with Ian…some excuse…any excuse…and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Dared not allow that to happen.

Thank goodness she had her parents to come home to. They knew nothing about her feelings for Ian; her mother always asked her about her life in London, about whether or not she had met ‘anyone special’, and Sara knew how disappointed she was that she too hadn’t married and had children, like her sister—not because she wanted more grandchildren but because she knew how much Sara herself loved them.

She glanced at her watch. Soon she would be home. Only another few miles to Wrexall, the village where she had been brought up. She loved this part of the country with its rolling hills, its views of the distant Welsh borders. Ludlow with its historic past wasn’t very far away, and she had grown up on the legends and myths of the countryside’s old and bloody history.

Until his retirement, her father had been a partner in a solicitors’ practice in Ludlow. It had been working in his office in the school holidays which had first given her the enthusiasm to train as a secretary. Her original ambition had been to perfect her languages and then to work abroad, possibly in Brussels, but then she had met Ian and everything had changed, and it was too late now to wonder what her life might have been if their paths had never crossed.

As she drove through the quiet village it was just growing dusk, lights coming on in the cottages that lined the road.

An anticipatory feeling warmed her heart, momentarily dispelling the aching coldness which had invaded it recently. No matter how mature she was supposed to be, she had never lost the feeling of happiness she always experienced at coming home.

Not even working for Ian had totally compensated her for seeing so little of her parents, her sister, her old friends—although most of her school-friends had moved away now; this part of the country couldn’t provide them with the means to earn a satisfactory living. And her sister had moved away as well. She and her husband now lived in Dorset.

As she turned off the main road and into the lane that led to her parents’ house, she felt her eyes sting a little. Heavens, the last thing she wanted to do was to break down in tears the moment she saw her parents. If she did that, her mother was bound to guess that something was wrong. She might have come home to lick her wounds, so to speak, but she fully intended to lick them in private.

She turned in through the open gates and drove up to the house, frowning a little as she saw that no lights were on, and then shrugging to herself. Her parents were probably in the kitchen. Her mother would be preparing supper and her father would be sitting at the kitchen table reading his evening paper.

Smiling to herself, she stopped her car and got out, hurrying down the side of the house.

However, when she turned the corner, there was no light on in the kitchen, no sign of life anywhere, and, worse, the garage door was open and her parents’ car was missing.

Could they perhaps have gone shopping? She frowned to herself, chewing on her bottom lip. Unlikely, surely…

She was just beginning to wonder where on earth they could be when she heard the sound of a car coming up the lane.

However, as she hurried back to the front of the house, her relief evaporated as she saw that the vehicle which was now stationary at the bottom of the drive wasn’t her parents’ sedate saloon car, but a battered Land Rover.

The man swinging himself out of it was unfamiliar to her. Tall and powerfully built, with thick dark hair which looked as though it was overdue for a cut, he was frowning as he saw her.

He was wearing a pair of faded, worn jeans, ripped over one knee, and an equally ancient checked shirt. His Wellington boots were muddy and so were his hands, Sara noticed as he came towards her and told her, ‘If you’re looking for the Brownings, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. They’ve gone to Dorset. Apparently their daughter went into premature labour late yesterday afternoon, and their son-in-law asked if they could possibly get down there to help out…’

He stopped abruptly, his frown deepening as he demanded, ‘You aren’t going to faint, are you?’

Faint? Her? Sara have him a quelling, icy look. Never in her life had anyone accused her before of looking like the kind of woman who was likely to faint. In any other circumstances she might almost have found the fact that he had so obviously misjudged her slightly amusing. Men usually found her efficiency, her self-sufficiency rather off-putting, and the suggestion that he considered her weak and vulnerable enough to resort to something so ridiculously Victorian as fainting simply because her parents weren’t here made her reflect inwardly that, whatever else this man was, he was certainly no expert on the female sex.

‘No, I’m not going to faint,’ she told him crisply. ‘I was just rather shocked to discover that my parents aren’t here.’

‘Your parents!’ He had been about to turn away, but now he swung round again and studied her with open curiosity. ‘You’re Sara!’ he pronounced at last, looking at her with such obvious bewilderment that Sara wondered what on earth he had been told about her to make him view the reality of her with so much obvious disbelief.

‘Yes, I’m Sara,’ she agreed coolly, and then, remembering that she was back home now and not in London and that there was no need for her to be defensive and withdrawn, and moreover that this man was obviously well known to her parents, she added, ‘And you must be…’

‘Stuart Delaney,’ he told her, extending his hand, and then withdrawing it as they both looked at the mud encrusting it. ‘I’ve just been heeling in some young trees. I was on my way back home to get cleaned up when I saw your car. I knew your folks were away and so I thought I’d better just stop and take a look. Did they know you were…?’

Sara shook her head.

‘No, I…’ She broke off, unwilling to explain that her return home had been an impulse decision.

So this was her parents’ new neighbour, the man who had bought the old manor house. He was younger than she had expected, somewhere in his early thirties, she judged, a tough-looking individual and yet one who evidently had far more neighbourliness in him than his appearance had led her to suspect, if he had been concerned enough to stop and see who was visiting her parents’ home.

‘Well, I’d better be on my way, then. You’ve got a key for the house, have you? Only your parents left a spare with me…’

‘Yes, I’ve got my own key,’ Sara assured him, thinking again how deceptive appearances could be. From the look of him she would hardly have expected him to be concerned about her, or about anyone else for that matter. He looked too hard, too remote…not like Ian, who looked so much more human, so much more approachable. And yet, in the same circumstances, would Ian have concerned himself about the possible plight of a stranger?

She started to turn away from him, aware that she was suddenly shockingly close to tears. To have come so far and then found that her parents weren’t here. Only now was she prepared to admit how much she had counted on their being at home…on the soothing balm of their love, their quiet, unfussy concern, their…their presence. Well, it was far too late now to turn her car round and drive back to London, even if she had wanted to do so, which she did not. But the prospect of spending the night in an empty house with nothing to do other than fight against dwelling morbidly on everything that had happened… She started to move towards the house, and then blinked as the gravel beneath her feet started to heave and roll in the most peculiar way, rather as though it were water and not gravel at all. She was feeling oddly light-headed as well, and an irritated male voice seemed to be calling her name, but it came from so far away that it was little more than a dull rumble, like hearing sound through a seashell. Even so, she tried to respond to it, to turn in its direction, but everything was going dark…black… Too late she recognised that it had perhaps not been sensible of her not to have eaten anything before she left London earlier in the day, but she had been in such a fret of anxiety to get home, and anyway her appetite had completely deserted her over these last few days.

She tried to say something, to reassure the shadowy figure coming towards her that she was perfectly all right, but the words wouldn’t come and she was spinning wildly in a black vortex of darkness that refused to let her go.

She was, she recognised in shocked surprise, despite all her claims to the contrary, about to faint.




CHAPTER TWO


‘BUT I never faint!’

Sara frowned, recognising her own voice. She opened her eyes and discovered that she was lying in the back of a Land Rover, and moreover that there was something hard and lumpy under her spine. She tried to move, but a pair of large male hands restrained her.

‘Not so fast, otherwise you’ll be off again. Keep still for a moment.’

‘Off again…’ What on earth did he think she was? she wondered indignantly. ‘I never faint,’ she repeated firmly. ‘And if you would just let go of me…’

She tried to sit up, to struggle against him, and gasped in shock at the way her head started to swim the moment she lifted it from the floor.

‘Keep still. You’ll feel better if you do.’

The deep voice, so calm, so authoritative, ought to have annoyed her, but for some reason it had exactly the opposite effect, relaxing her tense muscles, soothing both her body and her mind so that this time she stayed where she was, closing her eyes, conscious of the hard fingers circling her wrist, monitoring her pulse.

‘Now try breathing slowly and deeply. Not too deeply…’

Again, half to her own astonishment, she did as she was instructed, finding it easy somehow to match her breathing to the even cadences of the voice instructing her.

‘Feeling any better?’

This time, when she opened her eyes and nodded, the world didn’t spin round her but stayed stationary.

‘It’s my own fault,’ she announced as she sat up, a little more cautiously and far more successfully this time. She was, she realised, in the back of Stuart Delaney’s Land Rover. It smelled of fresh clean earth, of rain and growing things. ‘I didn’t have anything to eat before I left London.’

No need to tell him that she had not in fact eaten properly for several days, not merely several hours.

She winced a little as she had an unwanted mental vision of Anna’s soft femininity, her curves, the fluid contours of her flesh, so much a contrast to her own more angular slenderness. Thin and dried-up, that was how Anna had dismissively described her, making her feel somehow desiccated, withered, old almost, even though Anna was in actual fact two years her senior.

Men didn’t like thin women; they liked curves, softness, the ripe promise of a female body that was alluringly shaped; and she tensed a little, waiting for Stuart Delaney to make some comment about her thinness, but instead to her relief he merely commented almost absently, ‘Well, we all do it at times, when we’ve more important things on our minds. Done it myself. In fact…’

She was sitting up now, ruefully conscious of the fact that the dirty interior of the Land Rover wouldn’t have done her cream suit much good.

‘Look, I was just on my way home. I haven’t eaten myself yet. Since your parents aren’t here, why don’t you join me? Mrs Gibbons from the village will have been up today to give the place a clean. She normally leaves me something to eat, and in view of the hospitality I’ve received from your parents…’

It would be foolish to refuse his offer. This wasn’t London, where a woman had to be wary of invitations and approaches from any man on such a short acquaintance. And besides, she already knew from her mother’s phone calls how much her parents liked their new neighbour.

The alternative was remaining at home on her own, brooding, remembering…

‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind…’

‘If I minded, I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place.’

There was more than a touch of brusqueness in his comment, but instead of feeling rebuffed by it Sara found that it was refreshing almost. He was so very different from Ian. Ian, whose charm had masked a cruelty, a callousness that had left her feeling as though she had been mauled and left sore and bleeding when a harder, cleaner blow would have been kinder.

‘Fine. I’ll follow you up to the house in my own car, shall I?’ she suggested, but Stuart Delaney shook his head.

‘No, better not… I doubt that you’re likely to faint again, but it’s best not to take the chance.’

‘Oh, but that means you’ll have to bring me back,’ she began to protest, but he had apparently stopped listening to her, and was walking to the rear of the Land Rover, jumping out and heading for the driver’s door.

Sara started to follow him. She was no stranger to travelling in the back of beaten-up old Land Rovers, and had done so on many occasions during her teens, and so she knew from experience just how uncomfortable a ride she was likely to have if she stayed where she was. No, she would be far more comfortable in the passenger seat.

As she reached the rear of the vehicle, she slipped off her high heels and prepared to struggle down to the ground with the handicap of her straight skirt, but to her amazement Stuart, who she thought had left her to make her own way out of the Land Rover, was waiting for her, calmly scooping her up in his arms.

‘Please…there’s no need for you to do this,’ she protested breathlessly, clutching her shoes with one hand and discovering very quickly that it was necessary to cling to the front of his shirt with the other.

It was very difficult to sound cool and businesslike with her head tucked into his shoulder and her fingertips inadvertently brushing the warm bare flesh of his throat.

It disconcerted her to realise how oddly aware of him she was, how very quickly and unexpectedly her breathing had altered to become shallow and quick as her body registered the proximity of his.

A look of startled bewilderment darkened her eyes, causing her to immediately close them as her body tensed against the sensations she was experiencing.

It was just the total unexpectedness of being held like this, she told herself. How long had it been since a man had picked her up and held her in his arms?

How long had it been since she had experienced this kind of male-to-female intimacy in any form at all, no matter how non-sexual?

She tried to remember, to conjure up some corresponding mental image to offset the peculiar and unwanted sensations that were causing her such discomfort and embarrassment, and could not do so.

Oh, there had been occasions in her teens…boys…clumsy, awkward kisses and embraces; but she had always been on the shy side…and then since she had met Ian…

As he felt her tension, Stuart stopped moving, and told her equably, ‘It’s OK, I’m not going to drop you. Don’t forget I’m used to carrying half-grown trees about, and if you’re thinking they don’t need to be treated as fragile and easily damaged, then you’re wrong. There is nothing more vulnerable and open to damage than a young tree removed from its habitat.

‘A moment’s carelessness, and the bruising and root damage which can be caused can prove fatal.’

Sara found she was battling against a half-hysterical desire to start giggling. Here she was, worrying about that startling frisson of physical sensation being in Stuart’s arms had aroused within her, tensing herself against his answering awareness of it, only to discover that in her rescuer’s eyes she was simply a sapling he was carrying from one place to another; that he was neither aware of nor concerned about the physical intimacy of their bodies in any sexual way at all and that he was totally oblivious to that tiny shudder of sensation that had run through her, coiling the muscles of her stomach, making her aware of the disconcerting hardening of her nipples.

It had been a long time since her body had reacted like that, she recognised, as he balanced her against him and eased her into the passenger seat of the Land Rover. Once, all it had needed to set her body on fire with aching need had been for Ian to walk into the same room; simply to hear his voice, to register his presence had been sufficient. But just lately… She frowned, trying to remember just when it had last been that her body had reacted physically to his presence, to his sexuality, and acknowledged that she could not do so. Which was strange, surely, when she loved him…

She was still frowning when Stuart got into the driver’s seat of the vehicle and put it in motion.

‘Sexless’ was how Anna had tauntingly described her, and in her heart of hearts Sara had admitted the accuracy of the taunt. She loved Ian, and of course she desired him, but over the years that desire had become muted, tamed. So much so that she had virtually forgotten what it was like to feel that sharp, biting ache within her body, that overwhelming physical feminine responsiveness to a man’s maleness; that she had honestly believed herself to have passed beyond the excitement of sexuality into more mature waters.

And yet here she was reacting in exactly the way she had thought impossible—and not to Ian…Ian, whom she loved…but to another man, a stranger—a man, moreover, who had given her no encouragement whatsoever to think of him in any sexual terms.

As he drove down the lane, she wondered uneasily what was happening to her, why her body had seen fit to rebel in such an unexpected and disconcerting fashion. She even began to wonder uneasily if she might have been wiser to have refused Stuart’s invitation to share his supper. And then common sense reasserted itself and she reminded herself mockingly that it was hardly likely that she was going to spend the evening locked in Stuart Delaney’s arms, and that, since that odd and totally unwanted sensual frisson of pleasure had only occurred when he had held her, she was perfectly safe from experiencing it again.

In fact, she told herself firmly, she would be better advised to put the whole incident right out of her mind. After all, her emotions had been through so many traumas recently that it was hardly surprising if she experienced the odd unexpected reaction.

As she saw the shadowy bulk of the manor house taking shape in the darkness ahead of them, she tried not to listen to the small, sharp voice that told her that her reaction to Stuart had been physical and not emotional.

After all, she knew herself well enough to feel completely secure and confident that she was not the type of woman who would ever need to seek reassurance and comfort, or even a confirmation of her desirability and femininity, in any compulsion to experience an intimacy with a man which was purely physical. After all, she reminded herself bitterly, hadn’t Anna and Ian already made it devastatingly plain to her that she was not the kind of woman whom men desired or found physically attractive? She would be a fool even to think of putting that denunciation to the test…of trying to prove them wrong by…

The direction of her thoughts brought her to an abrupt and shocked halt. A physical relationship with a man who wasn’t Ian? A man she did not love? Was she out of her mind? Had the shock of recent events virtually unbalanced her mentally as well as emotionally?

Stop it, she warned herself angrily. You’ve got enough problems to deal with without looking for more.



It had been several years since Sara had last visited the manor house—a duty visit with her mother one Christmas to the old man who used to live there—but as a child she had always found the place fascinating, and now, as Stuart brought the Land Rover to a halt at the rear of the building in what had originally been the stable yard, she turned to him and asked him impulsively, ‘What made you decide to buy this place?’

He gave her a brief smile. He had a nice smile, she noticed, and an unexpected dimple on the left-hand side of his mouth. She had to subdue an odd urge to reach out and touch it. It gave him a vulnerability totally opposed to her initial impression of him as a man as tough as granite.

He might not have Ian’s golden good looks, but he was a very attractive man none the less, she recognised, on a small spurt of surprise, a man a woman would feel she could depend on, trust…a man who would make a good father.

She was startled by the waywardness of her own thoughts. Where on earth were they coming from? A good father… What a ridiculous thought to have about a man she barely knew.

‘It was the woodland,’ she heard him saying to her, and frowned until she realised he was answering her own question. ‘Not because of the quality of the trees in it. In all honesty they’re pretty poor. Most of the oaks have had to come down, although I’ve been hoping to be able to use the wood once it’s matured. No, it was because the soil here…the land, is perfect, or as near perfect as I’m likely to get for my purposes. The acreage that goes with the house is sufficient for my needs, and the land is sheltered by the Welsh hills. It’s well watered but not marshy. I must admit I was worried at first about the risk of transplanting our stock up here, but so far our losses have been minimal and the new trees we’ve planted are doing very well. It’s always risky transplanting mature trees; that’s why, before we sell one, I like to check on where it’s going and to make sure the buyer is aware of the maintenance programme that’s necessary until it’s securely rooted. Of course, with all the recent storm damage, we’ve done very well on the sales side, but that also puts pressure on us to produce more stock, which takes time.’

Sara was both fascinated and confused.

‘I didn’t think it was possible to transplant mature trees.’

‘It isn’t unless they’ve been specially grown for that purpose. My uncle started the business, seeing a gap in the market, and in the main supplying councils. When he died I inherited it from him. I was already working for the Forestry Commission. In fact I was on secondment in Canada at the time. At first I intended to sell the business, but then we had the storms of ‘87 which put pressure on all suppliers of mature trees—and there aren’t many of us—and somehow or other I found I was hooked and that the business had grown on me, so to speak, but we needed to expand, and so I started looking for somewhere to relocate.’

‘It sounds fascinating,’ Sara commented, and genuinely meant it, but she could see from the sudden tightening of his mouth that he thought she was being sarcastic.

Impulsively she touched him, and said quickly, ‘No, I meant it. It does sound fascinating. I had no idea that it was possible to transplant large trees.’

There was a small pause and then he replied, ‘If you really are interested, while you’re up here, I could show you round…show you what we’re doing.’

‘I’d like that.’

She was surprised to discover that she genuinely meant it, and not just because it would be a means of keeping Ian out of her thoughts if only for a short space of time.

‘Are you feeling OK now?’ he was asking her. ‘Or—’

‘No. No, I’m fine,’ she assured him quickly. It was one thing to tell herself that that momentary and discomfiting sexual response to him meant nothing and was hardly likely to happen again. It was quite another to put that belief to the test, especially so soon after that first uncomfortably enlightening occurrence.

‘So far I haven’t been able to do much to the house,’ he warned her as they crossed the yard, and security lights came on, illuminating the cobbles and the empty stables as well as the jumble of windows and doors that studded the weathered stone of the building.

‘As I said, Mrs Gibbons comes up from the village a couple of times a week. I’ve managed to make the kitchen habitable, plus one of the bedrooms, but as for the rest…’

‘It’s a very large house for one man,’ Sara ventured.

They had almost reached the back door and he paused now, turning to look at her.

‘Yes,’ he agreed bleakly. ‘When I bought it, I hadn’t actually visualised living here alone.’

Immediately Sara guessed what must have happened. Like her, he had obviously been rejected by the person he loved. Perhaps she had not wanted to live in such an isolated spot. Perhaps she had been someone he had met in Canada who had not wanted to come and live in England, who had not loved him enough. No one knew better than she how much that kind of rejection hurt…how it scarred and wounded. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, to offer him her sympathy, her understanding, but he was already turning away from her, extracting some keys from his pocket and unlocking the kitchen door.

As he held it open for her, he reached inside and flicked on the lights.

Sara stepped past him and into the generous-sized room, catching her breath in admiration as she saw how it had been transformed from the dreary place she remembered.

Walls had been moved to make the room larger; the kitchen range, which she vaguely remembered as a crouching evil monster that belched smoke and was covered in rust, had been transformed somehow or other into a model of polished perfection, whose presence warmed the entire room, offering the two cats curled up on top of it a comfortable place to sleep.

Where she remembered a haphazard collection of tatty utilitarian cupboards, and a chipped stone sink, there were now beautifully made units in what she suspected was reclaimed oak, from the quality and sheen of their finish. The original stone floor had been cleaned and polished and was now partially covered with earth-toned Indian rugs; the walls had been painted a soft, warm, peachy terracotta colour; on the dresser, which like the units was oak and softly polished, stood a collection of pewter jugs and a service of traditional willow-pattern china.

A deep, comfortably solid-looking settee was pulled up close to the range, and the table in the centre of the room looked large enough and solid enough to accommodate a good-sized family.

In fact all that the room lacked to make it perfect was perhaps some flowers in the heavy pewter jugs, and of course the delicious warm smell of food cooking which she always associated with her mother’s kitchen and her mother’s love.

‘This is wonderful,’ she commented admiringly, swinging round to face Stuart and to say wryly, ‘I don’t know who installed these units for you, but I do know that they must have cost the earth—the quality of the wood alone…’

‘Reclaimed oak,’ he told her offhandedly. ‘I picked it up quite cheaply, and as for the units…’ He shrugged, and turned away from her.

‘I made them myself. Not a particularly difficult task.’

He sounded so offhand that for a moment Sara felt embarrassed that she had enthused about them so much, and then she recognised that her praise had probably embarrassed him, that he perhaps wasn’t actually used to his talents being admired.

While she assimilated these thoughts, she chalked up another black mark against the woman who had rejected him. Had he built this kitchen for her, working on it with love and hope, only to find…?

Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away hurriedly, and heard herself saying in an oddly choked voice, ‘Well, no matter what you say, I think they look wonderful. The wood—there’s something about it that makes you want to touch it…to stroke it almost…’ She broke off, feeling thoroughly embarrassed as she realised that he had turned round and was scrutinising her.

‘Not many people recognise that quality in wood, that appeal; to most of them it’s simply…wood. They don’t recognise its tactile appeal…’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, I’m starting to lecture you. If you haven’t eaten all day you must be starving. I’ll see what Mrs G. has left.’

He opened the door and disappeared in the direction of what Sara remembered as being one of the house’s cold pantries, returning within seconds with a covered dish.

‘It looks like shepherd’s pie,’ he told her.

‘Wonderful.’ She could feel her empty stomach starting to grumble hungrily at the thought of food.

This was the first time she had actually felt hungry since Ian had dropped the bombshell announcement of his engagement. The first time she had found herself able to forget her own problems and become interested in something and someone else, she recognised as Stuart switched on the oven and opened it, placing the pie dish on one of its runners.

‘Mrs G. tells me that it is possible to cook things in the range,’ he told Sara ruefully. ‘But as yet I haven’t quite mastered the knack.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

Sara told him about her visits to the house as a child, admiring the way he had managed to restore the range.

‘I enjoyed it. In the winter, when the daylight hours are so short, having the house to work on is an ideal means of finding something to do.’

He paused, his face slightly shadowed, and Sara wondered sympathetically if he was thinking about her, the woman he loved…thinking about how different things might have been were she here to share his life with him. He looked so sombre that she half turned away from him, instinctively wanting to give him privacy for his feelings, and she was surprised to hear him saying, ‘The problem is that, instead of renovating the house, what I ought to be doing is tackling the mountain of paperwork that’s amassing in the study.

‘That’s proving to be my biggest headache since I inherited the business. It seems that an inability to deal accurately and efficiently with paperwork is a family trait. My uncle’s affairs were in such a mess that I had to hire a firm of accountants to get them straightened out. They recommended a computer and a software program, both for the financial aspects of the business and for keeping a record of the replanting schemes I intend to set up, but the first time I tried to use the damn thing…’ He sounded so exasperated that Sara turned to look at him. He had pushed his fingers into his hair as he spoke to her in a gesture of impatient irritation which confirmed her earlier opinion that it needed cutting.

His hair was thick and glossy, almost black, so very different from Ian’s expertly styled blond hair.

‘I don’t know why it is, but I seem to have a blind spot where paperwork is concerned.’ He was scowling slightly, suddenly looking very much younger…almost like a little boy. The thought of anyone considering such a large and tough-looking man as a little boy amused Sara enough to make a small smile curve her mouth. She saw Stuart looking at her, and realised that he was focusing on her face…on her mouth itself.

The instant reaction that ricocheted through her body stunned her into immobility, followed by an astonishing urge to touch her tongue-tip to her lips to relieve their unfamiliar dryness. It was so long since she had been aware of how very erotic it could be to have a man’s attention focused on her mouth in that particular way that it was several seconds before she recognised her reaction for what it was.

Immediately her face became suffused with a wave of hot colour, which intensified as she realised abruptly that Stuart probably hadn’t been focusing on her mouth in any remotely sensual way at all, but had far more likely mistaken her smile for contempt at his inability to cope with his paperwork.

Embarrassment and a desire to rectify matters rushed her into ill-considered speech, so that before she knew it she was saying quickly, ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help… I’m going to be here for…for some time. I might not be familiar with your software, but I could perhaps make some headway with the ordinary paperwork.’

He was watching her with so much surprise that she stopped speaking, her face burning again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she started to apologise. ‘You’ve probably made arrangements of your own. You—’

‘No. No, I haven’t,’ he assured her. ‘And if you really mean it… I can’t tell you what a headache it’s been. I just don’t seem to be able to get to grips with it at all. You’re intending to be around for some time, then?’





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